Achilles Therapeutics, which is developing T-cell therapies to treat solid tumors, reports that it is leading a consortium that has been awarded a €4 million ($4.2 million) grant from Horizon Europe, a European Union’s funding program for research and innovation. The consortium, which also includes Leibniz University Hannover (the project coordinator), the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, and the Fundacion para la Investigacion del Hospital Universitario la Fe de la Comunidad Valenciana, will work on developing innovative smart bioprocessing manufacturing platform for personalized cell therapies.
“We are thrilled to be part of this consortium to support the continued innovation of cell therapy manufacturing processes,” said Edward Samuel, executive vice president, technical operations at Achilles Therapeutics. “As a pioneer in the field of personalized cell therapies, we are excited to lend our expertise to this project which we believe can deliver significant benefits for patients.”
Established to incorporate advanced inline sensors
Most cell therapy manufacturing platforms do not provide sufficient real-time data during production which can limit proactive decision making and reduce overall scalability, according to Samuel. This consortium will collaborate on the development of a proof-of-concept, first-in-class, smart bioprocessing manufacturing platform for personalized cell therapies that aims to incorporate advanced inline spectroscopic sensors and smart machine-learning process control systems, he adds.
The project, named SMARTER, will be conducted by a team of interdisciplinary scientists from the consortium with expertise in cancer immunotherapy, bioinformatics, cell therapy bioprocess engineering, metabolomics, and advanced sensor development.
Of the €4 million that has been allocated to this project, approximately €1.4 million ($1.5 million) will be allocated to Achilles via the Horizon Europe Guarantee from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
For more GEN news on cell therapy see “Making Functional Membranes in Artificial Cell-based Therapies” and “Optimizing the Variables in Stem-cell Manufacturing.”
